What is a singleton in C#?

Question

Pretty straight forward question.

What is a Singleton and when should I use it?

Answer 1

A Singleton (and this isn't tied to C#, it's an OO design pattern) is when you want to allow only ONE instance of a class to be created throughout your application. Useages would typically include global resources, although I will say from personal experience, they're very often the source of great pain.

Answer 2

It's a design pattern and it's not specific to c#. More about it all over the internet and SO, like on this wikipedia article.

In software engineering, the singleton pattern is a design pattern that is used to restrict instantiation of a class to one object. This is useful when exactly one object is needed to coordinate actions across the system. The concept is sometimes generalized to systems that operate more efficiently when only one object exists, or that restrict the instantiation to a certain number of objects (say, five). Some consider it an anti-pattern, judging that it is overused, introduces unnecessary limitations in situations where a sole instance of a class is not actually required, and introduces global state into an application.

You should use it if you want a class that can only be instanciated once.

Answer 3

another way to implement singleton in c#, i personally prefer this way because you can access the instance of the singeton class as a property instead of a method.

public class Singleton
    {
        private static Singleton instance;

        private Singleton() { }

        public static Singleton Instance
        {
            get
            {
                if (instance == null)
                    instance = new Singleton();
                return instance;
            }
        }

        //instance methods
    }

but well, as far as i know both ways are considered 'right' so it's just a thing of personal flavor.

Answer 4

Singleton is a type of remote object, which is used to service multiple clients. These objects maintain states rather than singel call object types

Answer 5

What is a singleton :
It is a class which only allows one instance of itself to be created, and usually gives simple access to that instance.

When should you use :
It depends on the situation.

Note : please do not use on db connection, for a detailed answer please refer to the answer of @Chad Grant

Here is a simple example of a Singleton:

public sealed class Singleton
{
    private static readonly Singleton instance = new Singleton();

    // Explicit static constructor to tell C# compiler
    // not to mark type as beforefieldinit
    static Singleton()
    {
    }

    private Singleton()
    {
    }

    public static Singleton Instance
    {
        get
        {
            return instance;
        }
    }
}

You can also use Lazy<T> to create your Singleton.

See here for a more detailed example using Lazy<T>

Answer 6

Here's what singleton is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singleton_pattern

I don't know C#, but it's actually the same thing in all languages, only implementation differs.

You should generally avoid singleton when it's possible, but in some situations it's very convenient.

Sorry for my English ;)